John Milton’s handwritten annotations have been identified in a copy of Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles (1587), a vital source of inspiration for the Paradise Lost poet. The discovery, made in the Burton Barr Central Library in Phoenix, Arizona, makes this one of only three known books to preserve Milton’s handwritten reading notes, and one of only nine books to have survived from his library.
The findings, detailed today by three researchers including in the , include Milton censoring Holinshed by crossing out a lewd anecdote about the mother of William the Conqueror, Arlete.
Spotted while dancing by Robert I of Normandy, and summoned to his bed, Arlete refused to let him lift up her smock and instead tore it herself from top to bottom, explaining that it would be immodest for her ‘dependant’ garments to be ‘mountant’ to her sovereign’s mouth.
In the margin, Milton dismisses this anecdote as inappropriate and told in the style of a pedlar hawking wares on the streets. In Milton’s exact words, it was: "an unbecom[ing] / tale for a hist[ory] / and as pedlerl[y] / expresst".
“The adverb ‘pedlerly’ was quite rare in writing at the time so we are seeing Milton really stretching language to express his contempt,” said co-author Professor Scott-Warren, from the University of Cambridge’s English Faculty, who was consulted to confirm that the handwriting was Milton’s.
“Milton is renowned as an enemy of press censorship,” Scott-Warren said, “but here we see he was not immune to prudishness.”
Milton crossed through the passage with a single, light diagonal line so the words beneath remain fully legible.
The discovery was made thanks to the Arizona Book History Group, a research forum at the Phoenix Public Library organised by Assistant Professor Brandi Adams and Professor Jonathan Hope, both from Arizona State University’s Department of English. Adams and Hope raised funds for four visiting scholars to study books in the library’s Alfred Knight Collection. In March this year, these researchers included the two other authors of this study: Dr Aaron Pratt, Curator of Early Books & Manuscripts at University of Texas; and Claire Bourne, an Associate Professor of English at Penn State. Holinshed's Chronicles, bound in two hefty volumes, was among a number of books that the researchers requested to see.
Photos of the handwriting and brackets were sent to Professor Scott-Warren, Director of the Cambridge Centre for Material Texts.
In 2019, Scott-Warren identified Milton as the annotator of a copy of the Shakespeare First Folio in the Free Library of Philadelphia, building on Bourne’s research. Academics and media reports called this one of the most important literary discoveries of modern times. Since then, the pair have employed research assistants to look for other surviving books from Milton’s library, with no luck.
Bourne was not sure how Scott-Warren would respond to the Holinshed notations, describing him as “very conservative” when it comes to reaching such verdicts. But his reply was rapid and enthusiastic: “Wow. Bingo!”
Scott-Warren’s assessment involved comparing the handwriting in the Holinshed annotations with Milton’s handwriting preserved in two surviving holograph manuscripts: the Commonplace Book (British Library) and the Trinity Manuscript (Trinity College, Cambridge).
